Someone Else's Story About Me

Kendra says it was the funniest night —

me at the bar, doing voices, the whole

table gone — and she's reciting it right,

her hands going, her laugh taking hold.

I'm nodding the way you nod

when the story is yours and the night

is a blank. She pulls her phone. The odd

thing is: that's me. Four years. Upright

and laughing, mid-impression, head back,

completely accounted for.

I look at the face. I can't track

the expression to any door

I have a key to anymore.

"That's you," she says. I say, I know.

She puts the phone away. We pour

another round. I watch myself go

on laughing in the back of her camera roll.

The joke, whatever it was, is hers now.